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McWilliams 'asked for job with Lenihan'

David McWilliams, Ireland's best-known economist, asked to be a special adviser to the minister for finance during last year's banking crisis, according to a spokesman for Brian Lenihan. The broadcaster, who boasts in a new book that he was central to the formulation of the banking guarantee scheme last September, is said to have been turned down for the role, which instead went to Alan Ahearne, an economics lecturer in NUI Galway.

Simultaneously the Department of Finance is playing down McWilliams's claims that he guided Lenihan through last autumn's banking crisis in a series of meetings and phone calls. The claims have been described as "indiscreet" and "not correct".

McWilliams has denied he sought a job from the Department of Finance, dismissing the claim as spin. "Instead of engaging with my ideas, they are seeking to discredit me," he said.